Percy Albert Sharples

Birth and baptism: http://digi.narc.fi/digi/view.ka?kuid=6855761

Percy A. Sharples was born 10.9.1857 in Tammerfors/Tampere Finland. However he went to school in England, he studied there and became an engineer. He was called a 13-year-old pupil at Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire in the England and Wales Census 1871.

He worked at different cotton factories in England and Russia before settling in Tampere. When Percy Sharples came to Finland he was employed by the Finlayson factory in Tampere. In 1897 he together with the brothers Arthur and Theodor Sommers and J. Kupiainen were fired and they all were engaged in the founding of Tamperen Puuvillateollisuus Oy. [Juhani Valanto: Satu-kirja, Tampere 2001]

July 1897 he was one of the three founders of Tamperen Puuvilateollisuus Osakeyhtiö. With 40 shares of each 10.000 mark he was the biggest shareholder and was among the board of directors 1897–1907. When the Lapinniemi factory started its activities January 1899 Percy Sharples became technical manager of the factory and continued in this capacity until 1914. He died 1915 [Matti Sadeniemi: Tamperen Puuvillateollisuus Osakeyhtiö 1897-1934, Tampere 1937].

Percy Sharples lived at his house next to the factory at Lapinniemi on the coast of Näsijärvi. Summertime Percy Sharples stayed at his summer house in Teisko, probably the bay of Ripolahti. To get there he used his steamship Mary. [Juhani Valanto: Satu-kirja, Tampere 2001]. Lapinniemi factory: http://runeberg.org/tieto/9/0637.html

P.A. Sharples was listed in the Tampere telephone directory in 1914: http://www.histdoc.net/tel/tre_RS.html

His wife Amalia Frantz was from Germany. She and Percy Sharples did not have any own children, but adopted Anna Elisabeth and Friedrich Wilhelm (Fritz) Rosenmeyer, children of her sister Minna Frantz and her husband Carl Rosenmeyer from Obehlischken in eastern Prussia (near Insterburg now in Kaliningrad). 1911 Anna Rosenmeyer married Väinö Henrik Liljeroos of the well known industrial family in Tampere and had a son Lasse Albert, born 1913 [Yrj%C3%B6 Raevuori: Tamperelaisia sukuja Tampere 1932].